GERMAN COURT JAILS FIVE MEN FOR RUNNING DARKNET CHILD ABUSE PLATFORM
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Agency Report
A German court on Monday sentenced five men to lengthy prison terms for operating a darknet platform where hundreds of thousands of users exchanged child sexual abuse material.
The Moenchengladbach Regional Court in western Germany handed down prison sentences ranging from five and a half to ten and a half years to the men, aged between 44 and 63.
According to a court spokesperson, one of the convicts will be placed under preventive detention after serving his term due to a high risk of reoffending.
The website, called “Alice in Wonderland,” was dismantled following nationwide police raids in September 2024, bringing an end to what authorities described as one of the longest-running child abuse platforms on the darknet.
During the trial, which began in October, the defendants largely confessed to the charges against them.
Prosecutors said the men served as administrators and moderators on the site between March 2019 and September 2024, facilitating the sharing of child pornography and coordinating abuse meetings among users.
“The primary purpose of this platform was to provide its members with child and youth pornographic content and to serve as a place to exchange this content,” prosecutors said.
Investigators revealed that some of the images and videos involved children as young as one year old.
One of the men was also tasked with obscuring the identities of abusers in self-produced content to hinder law enforcement efforts.
Following its shutdown, authorities said the site had been used to share millions of illegal images and videos, making it one of the most disturbing and extensive operations of its kind uncovered in Europe.
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